‘Avengers: Endgame’ Success A Nightmare For Movie Theater Managers

Avengers: Endgame, the long-awaited conclusion to the Avengers portion of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, has been a massive success through its opening weekend. The film has essentially re-written the record book for box office, earning, per Buzzfeed, over $1 billion at the worldwide box office, and over $300 million domestically. It also broke several records for single-day ticket sales.

The movie’s clear success has been a relief for the movie industry, which has had something of a lackluster start to the year. However, there’s one group of people having a hard time with the film’s massive crowds: Movie theater managers, and other employees of theaters showing the Avengers film.

“I love Avengers: #Endgame as a movie lover. I hate, hate, hate it as a movie theater manager,” Michael Colpitts, a theater manager in Massachusetts, tweeted this weekend. “We just simply are not equipped to handle this kind of business, and it’s killing us. Not enough staff. Not enough registers. Not enough ovens. Not enough space for queues. It’s insane.”

Colpitts added that he got through the weekend with a whole lot of Thanos jokes. And he said that his company is running new Endgame showings every 15 minutes, which means massive lines for tickets and food, slow parking lot churn, and other problems not seen on a typical day at movie theaters. His theater, he said, is showing 33 showings of three-hour Endgame per day, from 11 prints.

Others agreed and sympathized. “Still haven’t recovered from my midnight to 7am Force Awakens shift. As a former manager. I feel you,” an account called Slasher Reviews tweeted Sunday.

“The movie theater business just isn’t set up for this scale,” reporter Adam B. Vary of Buzzfeed tweeted about Colpitts’ thread. “It’s like carrying an anvil inside a sock — you CAN do it, but good god that poor sock.”

Endgame, in 29 AMC theater locations around the country, ran around-the-clock showings of the film, per The Hollywood Reporter. That’s the kind of thing that requires more-than-usual staff, from ushers to ticket-takers to the people who make the popcorn and even though those run the projectors. None of those things, typically, are 24-hour-a-day jobs.

While those movie theaters undoubtedly sold a ton of tickets, popcorn, and candy, those attending movies too often forget those who work hard to make their movie theater experiences better.

Colpitts went on to thank those who offered words of encouragement to him following his tweets.